Educating for citizen leadership: exploring the University of Cape Town’s global citizenship programme

This dissertation explores the University of Cape Town’s Global Citizenship (GC) Programme as a site for teaching citizen leadership. We live in times that are marked by complexity, uncertainty, and a plethora of global challenges, many of which have resulted in injustices in people’s lived experiences. Increasingly ordinary citizens are calling for new ways of leading change which combats social injustices. This form of leadership values social justice, democracy, equity, shared agency, active and engaged citizenship – this is regarded as citizen leadership. Higher education institutions have a role to play in developing student leaders who are equipped with the capacities to confront uncertainty and thrive in a changing world. This study recruited student participants of the GC programme courses. In total, ten students participated in one of four focus group discussions which were guided by semi-structured interviews, and ninety students consented to have their reflective essays on the GC programme courses analysed. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the participants’ experience of the programme, in the focus group discussions and reflective essays, was examined to determine how they understood citizenship, social justice and leadership in relation to the programme’s teachings. The findings revealed that most students regarded the programme as developing their capacities for active and engaged global citizenship. Most students did not view the programme as teaching leadership; however, based on the definition of citizen leadership, I argue that the programme is indeed a site for teaching this form of leadership. It is recommended that the programme staff make the connection between active and engaged citizenship, social justice, and leadership more explicit in their curricula and teaching. It is believed that this change to the programme will enable students to have a clearer understanding of themselves as leaders prepared for the world beyond university and enabled to bring purposeful change to the world

Motivating Employee Owners in ESOP Firms: Human Resource Policies and Company Performance

What enables some employee ownership firms to overcome the free rider problem andmotivate employees to improve performance? This study analyzes the role of humanresource policies in the performance of employee ownership companies, using employeesurvey data from 14 companies and a national sample of employee-owners. Between-firmcomparisons of 11 ESOP firms show that an index of human resource policies, nominallycontrolled by management, is positively related to employee reports of co-workerperformance and other good workplace outcomes (including perceptions of fairness, goodsupervision, and worker input and influence). Within-firm comparisons in three ESOP firms,and exploratory results from a national survey, show that employee-owners who participatein employee involvement committees are more likely to exert peer pressure on shirking coworkers.We conclude that an understanding of how and when employee ownership workssuccessfully requires a three-pronged analysis of: 1) the incentives that ownership gives; 2)the participative mechanisms available to workers to act on those incentives; and 3) thecorporate culture which battles against tendencies to free ride.human resources, industrial relations, employee ownership

Harnessing the power of theta: natural manipulations of cognitive performance during hippocampal theta-contingent eyeblink conditioning

Neurobiological oscillations are regarded as essential to normal information processing, including coordination and timing of cells and assemblies within structures as well as in long feedback loops of distributed neural systems. The hippocampal theta rhythm is a 3-12 Hz oscillatory potential observed during cognitive processes ranging from spatial navigation to associative learning. The lower range, 3-7 Hz, can occur during immobility and depends upon the integrity of cholinergic forebrain systems. Several studies have shown that the amount of pre-training theta in the rabbit strongly predicts the acquisition rate of classical eyeblink conditioning and that impairment of this system substantially slows the rate of learning. Our lab has used a brain-computer interface that delivers eyeblink conditioning trials contingent upon the explicit presence or absence of hippocampal theta. A behavioral benefit of theta-contingent training has been demonstrated in both delay and trace forms of the paradigm with a two- to four-fold increase in learning speed. This behavioral effect is accompanied by enhanced amplitude and synchrony of hippocampal local field potentials, multiple-unit excitation, and single-unit response patterns that depend on theta state. Additionally, training in the presence of hippocampal theta has led to increases in the salience of tone-induced unit firing patterns in the medial prefrontal cortex, followed by persistent multi-unit activity during the trace interval. In cerebellum, rhythmicity and precise synchrony of stimulus time-locked local field potentials with those of hippocampus occur preferentially under the theta condition. Here we review these findings, integrate them into current models of hippocampal-dependent learning and suggest how improvement in our understanding of neurobiological oscillations is critical for theories of medial temporal lobe processes underlying intact and pathological learning

Characterization of a core fragment of the rhesus monkey TRIM5α protein

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Like all tripartite motif (TRIM) proteins, the retroviral restriction factor TRIM5α consists of RING, B-box 2 and coiled-coil domains, with a C-terminal B30.2(SPRY) domain. Although structures have been determined for some individual TRIM domains, the structure of an intact TRIM protein is unknown.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here, we express and characterize a protease-resistant 29-kD core fragment containing the B-box 2, coiled coil and adjacent linker (L2) region of TRIM5α. This BCCL2 protein formed dimers and higher-order oligomers in solution. Approximately 40% of the BCCL2 secondary structure consisted of alpha helices. Partial loss of alpha-helical content and dissociation of dimers occurred at 42°C, with the residual alpha helices remaining stable up to 80°C.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results indicate that the B-box 2, coiled-coil and linker 2 regions of TRIM5α form a core dimerization motif that exhibits a high level of alpha-helical content.</p

Development of a Scalable Synthesis of HP-β-CD Pluronic Polyrotaxanes

Polyrotaxanes are polymers that have macrocycles threaded onto them, analogous to beads threaded onto a string. These materials are used for a variety of different biomedical applications.1-3 The Thompson group has been developing 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD) polyrotaxanes as therapeutics for the treatment of Niemann-Pick Type C (NPC) disease. NPC is a debilitating genetic disorder where cholesterol accumulates in the lysosomes of cells.4 Developing a scalable process is crucial for the advancement of these materials as NPC therapeutics. The goal of this project is to optimize the only protocol for the synthesis of HP-β-CD/Pluronic polyrotaxanes in order to develop a synthetic method that can be operated on the multi-gram scale to support preclinical studies.5 Each component of the protocol was screened to determine which combination lead to the formation of polyrotaxanes with the highest yields and threading efficiencies in the shortest amount of time. Threading efficiency is a measure of how many HP-β-CD molecules are threaded onto each polymer. In addition to optimizing the current protocol, we have also explored flowing the reaction mixture through a bath sonicator and using a hydraulic press as alternative syntheses. It was found that probe sonication and bath sonication are both necessary components of the protocol. This indicates that sufficient agitation of the reaction mixture is required to promote the non-covalent threading reaction. Furthermore, bath sonication for one hour, followed by stirring for two days gave the highest threading efficiency. The results of these studies have simplified the existing protocol, but additional studies are needed to reveal whether this protocol is robust enough for efficient preparation of other HP-β-CD/Pluronic polyrotaxane derivatives

I-O Graduate Program Rankings: Update

In the summer 2016 issue of TIP (Salter et al., 2016), we put out a Call for Proposals for updated I-O graduate program rankings. In this call, we were looking for new and unique methodologies for ranking I-O graduate programs that reflect the diversity of values and strengths across our field. We are pleased to announce we have conditionally accepted five proposals. Each of these teams will now conduct their project (which we hope all SIOP members will help with once data collection begins); we anticipate the final rankings will be published in the summer 2018 issue of TIP. Please note that the goal of this project is to make our methodologies public before data collection to reduce the likelihood of researcher degrees of freedom influencing the results. Although frequently unintentional, it is all too common for analytic decisions to be driven in part by the results that follow. Our goal is to achieve transparency in the way rankings were conducted and to present multiple methodologies, to aid students and educators in their decision making

Call for Proposals for I-O Graduate Program Rankings

Are you part of an I-O graduate program that is truly excellent, but the typical ranking systems do not necessarily show that? Would you like to help I-O psychologists (current as well as those who will be entering our field in the future) develop a better understanding of the different strengths of various graduate programs? We are issuing a Call for Proposals for rankings of I-O graduate programs. This is an excellent opportunity for graduate programs to highlight the ways in which they excel, and for individual SIOP members to help contribute to our field. In this Call for Proposals, we are seeking proposals for new and unique methodologies for ranking I-O PhD and MA/MS programs that reflect the diversity of values and strengths across the field of I-O. Multiple ranking methodology submissions will be accepted for publication, resulting in multiple rankings featured in an upcoming issue of TIP. We have developed this call in consultation with the TIP editor, in response to a need for more comprehensive and updated information about graduate programs

Systematic Review of the Predictors of Recurrent Hemorrhage After Endoscopic Hemostatic Therapy for Bleeding Peptic Ulcers

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73351/1/j.1572-0241.2008.02070.x.pd